


Three Five Zero Zero

by solar_prestige



Series: Three Five Zero Zero [1]
Category: Interview With the Vampire (1994), Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: 1960's, 1970's, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depictions of Death, I made up some last names, Look guys, M/M, POV First Person, Strong Language, Total AU, and blood, depictions of war, expect some deformation of character, future smut possible, hella angst, how do tags, liberal use of nicknames, nevermind the background characters, they're also inconsequential, this is just something I've been playing with and it just happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 03:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16210880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solar_prestige/pseuds/solar_prestige
Summary: 1969, New York City. Armand expected a life filled with freedom and beauty, but they were ripped out of his hands and replaced with an M-16. His peace of mind and safety were stripped from him like his clothes and hair at the simple call of a number after the evening news. Drafted, enlisted, beaten down, and remade, he is sent to Vietnam to ward off the illusive "Red Menace." Along the way, he makes friends, loses friends, learns the meaning of love, and the price of losing himself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Words and actions of the characters do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the author. This is an AU set in the time and popular opinion of the 1960's. Language and slurs may be used that some readers may find offensive. Please, continue reading at your own risk.

Vietcong losses leveling up three five zero zero per month     

Front page testimony February '66 

Here in Nebraska same as Kansas same known in Saigon 

In Peking, in Moscow, same known 

by the youths in Liverpool three five zero zero 

the latest quotation in the human meat market 

Father I cannot tell a lie!

. . . .

Napalm and black clouds emerging in newsprint 

Flesh as soft as a Kansas girl's 

ripped open by metal explosion---- 

         three five zero zero on the other side of the planet 

caught in barbed wire, fire ball 

bullet shock, bayonet electricity 

bomb blast terrific in skull & belly, shrapneled throbbing meat 

 

Excerpt from “Wichita Vortex Sutra” by Allen Ginsburg

 

 

\-------------------------------------------

 

 

Prologue

 

I never thought I was gay. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as men loving other men, women loving other women. It wasn’t something parents warned their children about or taught against in church. There was the verse, “if a man lieth with men as he does with women,” but no one ever explained it, and again, no one, especially young kids, ever thought to ask. 

One evening, my dad was watching the news, some coverage of the Women’s Lib in the city, and called out, “A bunch of lesbians, is what they are!” I had asked him what a lesbian was, and he gestured at the television with the beer bottle, “Those right there are lesbians, son. Thinking they don’t need men anymore. I’d like to see them make it the world without us. Won’t that beat all.” From that night for about three years, I thought ‘lesbian’ and ‘feminist’ were interchangeable.

It wasn’t until after I was drafted that someone finally explained what a lesbian was and what being gay was about. I hadn’t known, really, that homosexuality was the proper term until my induction papers came in. 

 

It wasn’t until the war, after I had taken any number of human lives, saw enough death to paint the whole world red with Communist blood did I even begin to appreciate what love meant, be it from a woman, sweet and gentle, or a man, rough and hardened by the same experiences I had endured.

 

I was already eighteen by my senior year of high school and turned nineteen that June. I was a loud mouth, a party boy, but there were always two sides of my coin. There was one side that dated pretty and popular Bianca Sordelini, mixed up with pot, alcohol, and rock and roll. The other side of me was posing nude for the art teacher. 

 

Marius, the teacher, and I had come into the mysterious relationship over the course of the school year. It started out simply enough: I had shown an interest in art from the beginning and showed promise of improvement within the first few lessons. He paid me extra attention, showed me a few techniques with perspective, more comfortable ways to hold the paintbrush. In the classroom, it was only words, but when I stayed behind after class or when school had let out, words slowly progressed into touches. 

 

Of course, by the time he first touched my hand, I trusted him, his eyes, and his skill. Everyone knew he was a professional, and that he had only entered the classroom to rear the skills of the next generation. He was the product of the World War II, and his classical style collided with the more modern movements to create works of art I could never seem wrap my head around. 

 

Marius was published, celebrated by critics, and revered by his students. He was the shining example of the successful artist and proof that beauty could be borne of devastation and destruction. He was, without fear of exaggeration, my idol.

He started with his guiding hand on mine, his cool, deep voice. By the time he had his one hand on mine, and his other on my hip, and he stood so close to me I could feel the heat radiate from his body, I had known I was more than just a student to him.

 

Upon invitation one afternoon, I had stayed after school had let out and stood in awe as he showed me sketch after sketch of my own body as it went about any number of ritual tasks. He had one of me as I knelt to tie my shoe, one as I sat at my desk apparently asleep, even one of me in the action of pulling off my shirt. 

I was flattered by his attention and so enamored with him that I never questioned him when he asked if I would be his muse. He, being the sophisticate that he was, never said the words directly :  “Will you let me paint you nude,” in fact, it happened so gradually that I hadn’t even realized I had agreed until he was as familiar with my body as I was. He would watch me paint, then he would position my chin and arm and tell me to “hold still,” then he would open my collar, then, somehow, the shirt would disappear followed shortly by my trousers.

He watched me, posed me with a single finger, drunk in my form as if he had never seen boy’s body before, but he never touched me. There were times he would get so close to me, I could feel the heat coming off his body like steam. He would lean in and my heart would beat so hard, I was sure it shook my body like an earthquake, but each time he would pull away and my body would release the tension with a heaving breath. 

 

I never quite understood if I was relieved he had stepped away, or disappointed. Why a young man would have been disappointed by being left alone by another man, I couldn’t have said. I did know that my face and chest flushed at his proximity, and my dreams were full of him. So vivid and so real were they, I often couldn’t tell the difference between memory and fantasy. I couldn’t very well ask the teacher if he had painted Normandy on my naked body even if I was desperate to know.

Some secret part of me ached for his hands on me, not just his fingertips as they moved me, but his palms, his whole hand. I wanted him to touch me, feel me, but every single time he drew close, I would panic. No one told me this was wrong, but something in my guts told me it was. 

By the end of the school year, I had stopped painting in the afternoon and had started to model for him only. I never told anyone I had done it, not because I was ashamed, there was no shame in art, but because he had shown me favoritism. It would have made the other students jealous, I thought, and it would make my parents uncomfortable to know that their son was buck naked with a forty-something year old war veteran. They wouldn’t understand, I thought, but more than that, I reveled in the intimacy of the secret. Something that was shared between only us. 

 

I was right about no one understanding. With any sort of openminded acceptance, I might not have had to lose myself to Vietnam.

 

 

Chapter one

New York State

June, 1969

 

The sun shone through the holes in the slatted aluminum blinds where the strings held them together and angled them closed against the heat that radiated from the teachers’ parking lot. I was seated in the dim glow of the art room completely naked on a towel on the floor. I was posed with my back against the wall in a position that was meant to replicate the pose of lounging on a sofa or a rock, whatever the teacher had planned. The angle in which I sat, arm draped over my middle, was meant to look effortless, but was in fact strenuous enough to cause my core to twitch and shake with the effort it took to maintain it. My eyes shifted from the color wheel on the wall to where the teacher stood behind his easel. The sounds the brush made as it touched the canvas were soft, gentle, and reminded me of the rustle of tall grass as it was blown in the breeze or the scratches of the field mice as they tore through the undergrowth. 

Somewhere in the room, a fly zoomed in and out of sight. One moment I would see it out of the corner of my eye, the next it was a buzz in my ear that pulsed and waned as it continued its circle. At one point, it landed on my knee where the sticky little feet tickled the little golden hairs that were illuminated by the droplets of sunshine that fell through the holes in the blinds. It was fat and lazy, and when I reached to bat it away, I received a from the teacher a disapproving click of the tongue and a sharp look. The movement, however, was enough to send the filthy thing away to buzz through another tour of the classroom. 

The continuous hum of the fly pricked at the irritation that had settled in the front of my skull from the ach in my abdomen. My body wanted to stop, to fold into the uncomely angle of the wall, but my mind reasoned that only a few more minutes would get me through the end of the session.

On the floor of the classroom, my whole body began to shake, and breath came hard to me. Just as sheen of sweat had begun to pool and drip slowly down my neck and brow, the teacher called for a stop. 

 

“Alright, Armand. That’s all I need for today.” I heaved a sigh as I let my body break down against the wall. It seemed as hot that early week in June as it would be in the blistering heat of August. I stood and wiped myself down with the towel. After the exertion of the last two hours, my body sang in its repose.

 

I stood and started to dress as he cleaned his brushes. He was always so meticulous about his brushes, and for good reason, I suppose. He was meticulous with everything from the way he dressed, to the way his hair fell, to the placement of his brushes in their roll. I knew just by the look of his brushes that they were good, better than the ones we students used, and that they had seen years of use. Years of attention and care, of constant use and cleaning. 

 

My inattention to what I was doing and the strange hyper focus to the routine of packing up from our afternoon activity made me slow to dress. 

I had just buttoned my trousers and took a few steps towards the teacher to look over his progress when the handle of the classroom door began to jiggle. Both of our eyes snapped to the door then to my obvious state of undress and the large canvas sitting out in the open. For a single heartbeat, neither of us moved. The lock in the door held and the paper we had taped up showed the shadow of the man who stood without all too clearly hesitate. 

"Marius? It's Dean. You there? I've got some notices for you look at.” It was the principal. 

 

We heard the jingle of keys through the door, and the sudden wave of panic sent us both into a frenzy. Marius threw his brushes into the roll, picked the canvas up by the frame and slapped the easel closed. I, meanwhile, was barely able to wrestle into my undershirt by the time we heard the keys grind into the door knob.

 

We both froze as the door swung open and I stared wide eyed at the familiar face. My shirt was pulled over my shoulders, but my belt hung from my hips. Dean Keller took one step in, saw me in my incriminating state of undress, looked to Marius and his poorly hidden canvas, and stepped all the way in.

 

"Finish getting dressed, young man. I'll be giving your father a call when I'm finished here." His voice was cold, and his gaze leveled on the teacher. 

 

I heard the argument that ensued. It was impossible not to. It started out strained and escalated quickly. In my haste to get dressed and get out, however, I was only able to comprehend such things as "talked about this before" and "couldn't possibly understand". 

 

I only looked back once at Marius before leaving. He didn't look back at me.

As soon as I exited the classroom, my legs began to move faster than they had moved the entire year. There wasn't a soul in the halls, only two cars in the lot, and my bicycle in the rack. I yanked it roughly from the metal rungs and threw all my weight into the pedals. 

 

The math was already spinning my head. If I pedaled hard, I could make it the ten blocks to my house in fifteen minutes. I stopped for nothing, not the stop sign, not the pine cones on the ground, and not the hot rod that nearly clipped my front tire. My blood pumped so fast, it throbbed in my ears, my adrenaline coursed through my body, and I could feel the sweat start to drip from my forehead, back and under arms. 

 

All the what-ifs turned in my hands faster than the bicycle wheels, and my feet struggled to keep up. The more catastrophic thoughts there were, the more determined I was to get home. 

 

by the fifth block, I had half a plan already formed. Doughy and half-baked as it may have been, it was the best I could come up with. I would walk in as cool as cucumber, tell mother I was expecting an important phone call, and wait by the phone until the principal called. What I would say to him, I certainly didn't know. My tires screeched around the corner, and I saw from the end of the street that my dad was already home. My panic welled so full and heavy in my gut that I thought for sure I would throw up before I even made it to the house. 

 

I biked up the curb and threw myself off onto the lawn. I must have run to the front door, because when I burst through it, dad picked his head up from the paper and the drink he was nursing to look at me like I was some sort of intruder. In my hysterics, the dumb look on his face nearly made me laugh out loud. His glasses drooped off his nose and mouth hung slack as if held up by two strings wrapped around his ears. What would have really made me laugh was the dull gloss of his eyes. If I had been an intruder, or if was chased, I thought in the burst of feeling that couldn't be called a thought, what could he have done in his half-tied state?

 

"Son! What the hell's the matter with you?" 

 

"Phone-" I hadn’t realized my breath came so hard until I attempted my calm and cool demeanor. I swallowed against what felt like sandpaper and started to cough. Oddly enough, the seemed to help me catch my breath and gave my words a bit more substance. "I'm waiting for an important phone call."

 

"Christ, son. You look like you've seen a ghost. What the hell kind of phone call is this?" I hadn't planned on actually having to answer questions about this.

 

"I don't know... one of the guys." As if it was heaven's bells, the phone started to ring. "I GOT IT!" I dove for the phone with a level of athleticism I was sure dad would have impressed with. I picked up the receiver and took a moment to lower my already deepening voice and said, "Hello." I prayed I sounded enough like my father to pass.

 

"Mr. Prosvirnin? This is Principal Keller calling regarding an incident that took place not half an hour ago with Armand." This was it. I had timed it perfectly, but now I had to conduct this charade with my father's eyes drilling holes into my back. "Is your son home yet?" At least he had bought the voice.

 

"No," I said as calmly I could manage as I attempted to catch my breath as quietly as I was able. "Not yet. What's happened?" The sweat hadn't yet slowed, and it poured from my body as if I stood under my own personal rain cloud. It pooled in my shoes and soaked my socks. 

 

"Well, sir, this may come as a shock to you, but I was just witness to your son and his teacher, Marius Romanus, in some kind of... I'm not sure how to say this delicately... inappropriate-"

 

"Oh, I'm aware of that arrangement." My voice didn't shake as I interrupted Mr. Keller. 

 

"You're... You're aware? Sir, this is highly irregular, not to mention inappropriate!" I started to shake as my father stood from his chair and started towards me. 

 

"What is it, son? What's the matter?" The look of concern in his eyes broke my heart with guilt for what I was doing. 

 

"What was that? Son? Who am I speaking with?" The living room started to shift as I suddenly felt my poorly pieced together plan begin to fall apart at the seams. This was it. This was the end of my young life, I thought, as my vision began to swim with the tears that had begun to well in my eyes. 

 

"Armand. Son. What is it? Who's on the phone?" Betrayal. My father's voice was softer than it ever had been when he addressed me, and I knew after I was forced to hand the phone over, it would never be that soft again. The tears started to fall in earnest as his large, rough hands covered mine and took the receiver from me. "Hello? Who is this?" His voice was stern, accusatory, just how I was used to it, but this time, it was directed at my enemy instead of myself. 

 

Mother had come in a moment before and quickly wrapped me in her arms. She had started to coo softly at me, asked what was wrong. They were both afraid, I realized. I hadn't cried since I was a little boy, and my entrance, my panic, had them both expectant and worried.

 

"This is Ivan Prosvirnin, yes...." It only took maybe thirty seconds for the paternal protection to melt into the irritated, and temper tinged tone that responded to the questions put to him. 

 

My small tears had subsided to a horrified leak as my father's eyes lifted from a neutral, downward position to the processing gaze straight ahead of him. They finally came to rest on me in a fiery blaze.

 

My mother's arms wrapped more tightly around me, and my fingers clutched her arm. It must have hurt her, but I couldn't let go in that moment for anything. Her little arm was all that was between me and my father's fury. 

 

"Is that right...No, of course I didn't. He told us he was there for tutoring."

 

"Armand. What did you do?" Mom's voice was quiet but was colored with the same accusation I heard in my father’s. Her arms suddenly seemed less the place of refuge and more the place of confinement.

 

"Jesus Christ. You're joking… No… No!" His rage was going to his head quickly. In the span of few seconds, his face turned red, his eyes began to bug. He rounded on me and my mother and I instinctively took a step back into her as his arm raised to hit me. He worked his hand in and out of a fist until his one finger pointed all his bottled anger directly into my face, right between my eyes. 

 

"Yes… YES! I'll handle it…I said I'll handle it, principal Keller! Thanks. Good night." He didn't hang the phone up. He threw the receiver down on the cradle, and it struck the rotary dial and bounced off with a clatter of plastic against plastic. The pained ring of the bell inside the phone made both made me and mother jump. "You...What.... How... All this year...."

 

"Ivan! What happened? What's going on?"

 

"What's going on?" He barked a laugh that rang in my head like the poor phone. "I'll tell you what's going on. Your son! Your son... has been carrying on with a Goddamn teacher!" Her arm fell, and she gasped in my ear. "Oh yeah! Did I forget to mention," his tone indicated he most certainly did not forget, "it was his ART TEACHER!" 

 

"What..."

 

"We're not carrying on, dad! I'm just his model!" It sounded ridiculous as it tumbled out of my mouth, but the way he said the words made it sound dirty, sinful. It wasn't any of those things to me. 

 

"Armand-"

 

"Just his model, huh? Is that how you think of it? Letting him paint you naked?"

 

"Armand!"

 

"Yeah, dad! It's nude art! It's not like he-"

 

"Shut your pervert mouth. I'm sick of you! Sick to death of you! I can't even stand to look at you another minute! I want you in your room, and I don't want to see you, hear you, smell you, think about you! Until I know what to do with you." 

 

I stood there motionless for a long moment until he pointed at the stairs and bellowed, "GO!" I turned and took the steps two at a time. My siblings were at the top of the stairs. They looked at me in stunned silence. "AND YOU CAN FORGET ABOUT ART SCHOOL NOW, BOY!" I shoved my way through them and into my room.

 

I slammed the door and began to pace. The tears still fell, but they were beyond my control at that point. Everything, I was to find out, from that moment on was out of my control. My mind had begun to race with catastrophic thoughts and self-pity.

 

For the batter part of the school year, I was college bound and excited. I had been accepted into the San Francisco University of Art by recommendation of the teacher. High school was over in weeks. How had we been so careful, the teacher and I, for so long to have this happen so near the end? I had a plan for the next four years, an escape from this suburbia hell I was in, out from under the thumb of my father. I was going to make something of myself, something other than the knuckle dragging, rough handed, heartless window licker of a father I had.

 

What a world I was in, I thought as I collapsed into bed and began to thoroughly pound my pillow into submission. We were a stone's throw from the City and you couldn't see a single building for the smoke and smog. We kids were told we couldn't swim in the river anymore because of pollution. There were riots in the city, marches on the Capitol, threat of mutual destruction with Russia, and, of course, the commies.

 

The communists were everywhere, the news said. The "American Way" was under threat, the posters warned. Everyone was pitching in in their own way. Dad had started taking us back to church and giving the family speeches about the war. He had served in the war, too, but he was not Marius Romanus. Dad was a knuckle dragger by his own admission, a grunt. He enlisted into the Marines right out of high school and was more than a little bitter when I came home with the letter of acceptance into an art college instead of enlistment instructions for Vietnam. Mother was secretly pleased, I was sure. 

 

The war made her a nervous, but so did the communists. The thought that I would leave the nest made her nervous. Everything upset my mother. It was always best to talk to her like a friend you barely knew. Topics like the Jeopardy questions from the night before, the funny answers from The Newlywed Game and the outfit of the bachelorette was wearing on the Dating Game were best. Any sort of local gossip, feelings, crushes on girls, any problems with my siblings, all of these held my mother's interest. She was kind, thoughtful, and empathetic. Perhaps that was why talks of the world going to hell all around her disturbed her so desperately. 

 

No doubt mother would be able to cool daddy's fury, but he had given his orders. It would take an act of God to have him allow me to go to college. He wouldn't force me into the Marines, I knew. Mother won't allow that. He could, and probably would force me to take a job. He had made several remarks about making my own way through college, about paying for dates out of my own pocket, but until that night, I didn't ever take him seriously. 

 

Dad made good money, and we never wanted for anything. He had his own troubles, though. It was obvious we were Slavic in origin. With a name like Ivan Prosvirnin, he had his own heap of problems and accusations of being a Russian ally. In return, he displayed his all-American family, his all-American wife, his patriotism, and devotion to God and country.

 

He taught us kids the proper way to be an American. We prayed before every meal, went to mass on Wednesdays, knelt beside our beds to say our prayers, put the flag up every morning, and took it down every night. We knew how to fold the flag before we knew how to tie our shoes. We knew that these liberal movements were ruining the nation, that rock and roll music was Satan's music, that negros and whites didn't intermingle, that the woman's place is home with the children. The United States was God's promised land, and we needed to be fruitful and multiply with these ideals. God was the Way the Truth and the Light, and the rest of the world was going to accept it, or else. 

 

In his mind there was only one correct way to live. It was simple, rigid, and unforgiving: Work hard and be a contributing member of a Christian society. 

 

I hated that rigidity. Nothing short of working my fingers to the bone would have made him happy. Nothing would have made him prouder than a request for new trousers because I had worn holes in the knees from all the kneeling and praying I had done. That was not how I wanted to live. I wanted to express myself. I wanted to pray or not pray however much or as little as I wanted. God had bigger things to worry about than my measly little problems. Even in the state I was in on my bed must have been peanuts compared to the anti-war protesters getting beaten in the street, the civil rights activists getting hosed into walls and mauled by dogs, the Americans in Vietnam killing commies and villagers without discern. Hell, even the villagers being killed needed God's attention more than I did. 

 

I was a little rebellious, but never enough to get me into trouble, or get my privileges take away. I grew my hair out, I folded my hands and crossed myself whenever anyone prayed, said some empty words when it came my turn to pray, but I didn't kneel by my bed since I got a room to myself. 

 

I got into trouble with my best friend Riccardo. We stole our parents’ alcohol, started smoking just to do it, he even came up with pot a few times. He never told me where he got it, but we smoked it. My girlfriend, Bianca, and I had gone all the way after prom. And, of course, there was my modelling for the teacher. I wasn't active politically or anything, but I had some liberal leanings that weren't discussed or tolerated in my house. 

 

I never helped my own case. I was always quick with a sharp retort when something was said that I didn't like or was aimed at me and my future. I got into arguments with my father, but there was always a line between us. We learned how toe the line, but when we crossed it, it was by yards and we would both regret it. I would mouth off, he would over react, I would always something stupid, something I didn't think through, and he'd slap me, or punish me in some way that way over the line. I was always sorry I had done or said the thing that upset him before the punishment came, but he was never sorry until after he dealt the punishments and his anger had quelled. It used to end in tears for me, but by the time I was fourteen, it had always ended in stubborn silence, neither of us wanted to admit he was wrong. 

 

This argument, for I was sure there would be an argument, was not one from which we were to recover quickly. I was too old to accept his control. He planned to take the one thing I cared about most in the world until I admitted I was wrong and atoned for my sins.

 

Atone I did. At the dinner table, him proclaim that I was to start at the mechanic's garage he ran the day after graduation, I would begin to pay rent and tithe effective my first paycheck. He would not, he declared, be pay one dime for my college education to some art school where all my moral fiber would be stripped and burned in front of his eyes. 

 

"Look what it's already made of you," he pointed out. "You've thrown away your manhood to become some kind of French strumpet with no more moral fiber than the girls who gave it up to the Nazis!" I was already wound up and itched to make a smart remark when my mother put an end to it.

 

"Oh, stop it! Both of you. You're spoiling supper for everyone. I don't want to hear one more word about this from either of you. Armand, you can go to art school because daddy and I want you to go to college-"

 

"But you're getting yourself there, got it? You're paying for your own bus ticket, you're getting student loans and a job. I'm not giving you another dime for anything. It's obvious you've had way too much time and leniency. The devil's got a damn playground going with your idle hands, boy. And it's my own damn fault. You don't know the meaning of hard work, and by the grace of Jesus, you're gonna find out." 

 

And that was it. I know there was no way I was going to be able to scrape up enough money for my bus ticket from New York to California by August. It was already June, and between rent, a ten percent tithe to the church, and a grocery fee that was put in place soon after the agreement, I would have had the money together by April of 1970 if things had gone differently.

 

 

 

I finished out the school year, saw Mr. Romanus every day, saw my friends, Riccardo, Bianca, but things had changed, without exaggeration, overnight. I was expected home at 3:45 on the dot. I had a list of chores that needed to be completed by the time dinner was on the table. I was only given four hours of free time on Sundays after church where I could leave the confines of my home. 

 

I always chose Riccardo for my hours of freedom. Bianca was a sweet girl, and I liked her a lot. She was more of a social obligation than anything else, though. I was allowed at her house a few nights a week for dinner, and she was allowed at mine. Somehow, word of my afternoon sessions with the teacher never got out, and no one at school 

 

I always chose Riccardo for my hours of freedom. Bianca was a sweet girl, and I liked her a lot, but she was more of a social obligation than anything else. I was allowed at her house a few nights a week for dinner, and she was allowed at mine. I think we were both ready for it to be finished when school ended, and she started university in the city. We stayed friends, talked on the phone now and then, and exchanged letters when we had the chance to write.

 

Somehow, word of my afternoon sessions with Mr. Romanus never got out, and no one at school treated me any differently. Our afternoon sessions ended, and I was suddenly just another face in the room to him. It hurt, but it was for the best, I told myself. For the sake of my future, I needed to work as much as possible. When school ended, I only saw him one other time. 

 

Riccardo and I, though, never drifted. He went to work immediately after school, like I did. We didn't have many days off together, but once it was obvious I had settled into the new world order of the house, I was given some freedom back. By October, I was able to come and go as I pleased. I was an adult who paid his dues, still went to church, still paid my tithes, and I felt that it was only correct that I be allowed to see my friend as often as dad went out for a beer. 

 

When the weather was good, we would go to the mall, hang around the park, go for drives in his new-to-him car, and spend as little of our money as was possible. When it started to get cold, we had little choice but to hang about in cafes and order coffee or go back to one of our houses. By November, it was too cold even to go outside to the cafe. Dad and I drove to work together, and I would either go home with him or get picked up by Ricky. 

 

I loved his house in the winter. He was Italian, and there was always good food. Good, hot, spicy, saucy food. More than once I wish the Besciglia's were my parents. Ricky and I were friends since we were in kindergarten together. Both being minority families in the suburbs in the 50's, mind you, Russians and Italians were considered if not treated as minority parties in the 50's, and both being Catholics, there was never an objection to our friendship. We were the Fascist and the Commie in school, but we were together. 

 

Mr. and Mrs. Besciglia were amazing. They were loud, free with their emotions, free with their thoughts and opinions. There was nothing off limits in that house. Long-winded, passionate discussions took place, and often arguments broke out, but there was no subject that earned sudden and immediate rebuke. Nothing I said in that house ever made me feel foolish, and no response from them ever made me ashamed to have spoken at all. 

 

There were subjects that embarrassed me like sex and relationships, but I wasn’t ashamed. They knew I wasn't a virgin when my parents didn't. That conversation started a short procession of obligatory Catholic guilt tripping, then proceeded into talks about safe sex. Three glasses of red wine were followed very closely by a confession that Fred and Mary hadn't been married by the time they made love for the first time. They also hadn't been each other’s firsts. That was a shock to me, Riccardo and the rest of the kids. Ricky's older brother made some smart remark about his own mother that earned him a smack on the face followed by a chorus of laughter. 

 

That was the way that house functioned. It was chaotic, but it was good. I much preferred a smack from Mr. and Mrs. Besciglia than my dad and the disapproving silence from my mother. At least with them, one good smack and some harsh words forgave whatever transgression I may have committed. In my house, it was an argument, a smack out of anger, and days or weeks of the cold shoulder. 

 

It was December 1st of 1969, and Riccardo had picked me up from the garage. I can remember the smallest details of that evening as if I had filmed every single step and played it constantly on the silver screen of my mind. It was cold, below freezing. Mother had just knitted a new scarf for me, and the wool was still rough, but it was warm. Rick and I went up to his room with a glass of red wine to "warm our bones" as Mrs. Besciglia had said and listened to his records. First, it was Jimi Hendrix while I showered and changed into something that didn't stink of oil and rubber, then we opened his brand-new Hair record. I loved it because it was the kind of music I couldn't listen to at home.

 

Hair was an experience that would stay with me for years. I knew it was the musical that was on Broadway the year before. I knew it had won awards, but it was the anthem of the counter culture movement that my father would have killed me for listening to, but it spoke to me. The story wasn't important, nor did it matter. It was revolutionary to me. It was everything I had heard about, everything I was warned against, everything I was curious about, and everything I was afraid of. It was exhilarating. It held a mirror up to the nation said "Look at yourself, America. Take a good hard look at yourself." 

 

Hair became the anthem of my life, the anthem of the war for me. 

 

We had risotto that night. I can remember the taste, the texture, and how content I felt after I had finished. I remember how the carpeting felt under my arms and between my fingers as I lay on the floor to watch the news with the rest of the family. There was, of course, war coverage. Hundreds of American lives were lost, thousands of Vietnamese lives were taken. The number of Vietcong casualties was indeterminable. At the time, I was irritated we were still there, irritated that they knew roughly how many civilian casualties they had over there, but the number of enemy casualties was “indeterminable.” It was ironic, I think as I look back, that there were American and civilian "deaths" and Vietcong "casualties."

 

With another stroke of irony, there was a reminder to stay tuned after the broadcast for the draft lottery. We knew about it, Ricky and I, but we knew he, born several months but the next calendar year after me, wasn’t eligible for the draft. I was, and so was Ricky's older brother. 

 

_ ain't got no draft card burn it burn it burn it _

 

Even though we expected it, there are no words to quite accurately describe the level of anxiety we all felt when the exit music played for the news, and the horrible patriotic trumpets and drums introduced the announcer of the draft. He very calmly announced what we all knew, what the draft was, that it was our duty as Americans to serve our country, to defend our beliefs and ideals, and to stop the spread of the Red Menace.

 

The clock chimed eight times and Mr. Besciglia muttered something at it.

 

A different man stuck his hand in a glass bowl and pulled out the first plastic capsule that looked like a small blue Easter Egg. I had sat up onto my knees. I knew I would be called. It was a fact. There were 366 birthdays, and every man born between 1944 and 1950 would be called. I was born June 4th, 1950. It was unavoidable, really, but I was sure I would be picked last. I had to be picked last. I had plans, a future. I couldn't go to war. Not me. If I was picked last, or even in the middle, I wouldn’t be called for months. By then, I would have college deferment, and the war would be over.

 

"14 September" Another man wrote the date on the board behind the table.

 

It had started. We knew it was going to be a while, but I wasn't able really relax. Mrs. Besciglia had a notepad with all their eligible family members. A capsule was opened, and the date was called like some kind of sick game of bingo. Fifteen dates in, and Mrs. Besciglia still didn't have any matches on her card. 

 

Nineteen dates in, and still nothing. I had been on my knees for about five minutes and decided to settle in when they called,

 

"4 June." Number twenty. Twenty. I froze half on my knees, half on my hip. I couldn't have heard it correctly. I was moving when he spoke. My clothes rustled too loudly. They couldn't have said MY birthday. I frowned at the little screen, but I couldn't make out the numbers on the board. That damn little man and his little writing. Damn this television for being so small and grainy, and damn that camera angle for making it impossible for me to confirm what I knew. I wasn't called. 

 

I opened my mouth and looked up to see the whole mess of Besciglia's looking at me. It had happened. Twenty. Just to drive the point home, the telephone rang. I knew who it was. 

 

"Go on. It's probably for you." I moved, but I couldn't feel fingers, my arms or my legs. Twenty. I was picked twentieth. Twenty out of three hundred sixty-six dates. I didn't have deferment. I had brothers. The bible talks about the forgiveness of taking in defense of faith and country. 

 

I picked up the phone. I meant to announce the Besciglia residence but all that came out was, "Hello?"

 

"Armand? Armand, it's mom, honey. Dad's coming to get you. We should watch the rest of the draft as a family. Dad's got some good advice. Please, just listen to him for once."

 

Dad gave me a drawn out lecture the entire drive home. It wasn't a long drive, but dad was not usually a long-winded speaker, and five minutes of lecture was beyond the normal amount of time he spent talking uninterrupted by about three minutes. 

 

He was proud. Mother said she was proud, but her words followed dad's a little too closely. My siblings were all too young to really understand the ramifications of war. I was too young to understand the ramifications of war. 

 

_ prisoners in niggertown it’s a dirty little war _

 

Things changed around the house. I was listened to, I was served my favorite things for diner, dad handed me beers when we got home from work. I was a man in his eyes, I realized when my call package arrived in the mail, and he took me down to the bar with the other guys from the garage. The bartender, a man all the guys knew by name, served me anything I wanted even though I was only nineteen. 

 

"If you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to order a beer," he said as he slapped a bottle onto the bar. 

 

It felt like my last rights. My call card instructed me to go to the induction center just inside New York City limits in four weeks’ time. 

 

_ do not enter the induction center! do not enter the induction center! _

 

Perhaps last rights weren’t as far off as a notion. The induction papers were certainly more disheartening. They wanted to know everything: blood type, religious affiliation, next of kin, burial instructions "if at all possible," cemetery/graveyard preference, again "if at all possible," marital status, sexual practices, whether or not I was homosexual, whether I had ever had relations with a man, had I ever given or received sex anally, and so many other invasive question a sheltered boy of 19 knew nothing about. 

 

I didn't understand enough about myself or the nature of the questions at that time. Had I answered yes to any of them, I would have been disqualified from service. Of course, I didn't. I was mortified. I was too embarrassed to even bring it up to my father. Surely, I thought, they hadn't made him answer questions like these. 

 

I did, however, bring them to Riccardo. He laughed and made joke about me being a secret ass bandit, and how he had always known and secretly longed for me. It wasn’t funny, and I didn’t laugh. Ricky patted my shoulder after a long silence. He didn't know about the afternoons with Marius, he didn't know about the uneasy stirrings I had while my naked body was scrutinized by another man.

 

"Hey, man. I've been giving it a lot of thought." I looked up at him, not sure what sort of words of comfort I was about to receive. "I want to go with you."

 

"What?"

 

"I want to go with you. To Nam. Listen, we've gone this far together, why shouldn't we see it through?" It wasn't what I had expected, but it could not have been more welcome. I couldn't stop myself from standing up and pulling him into a tight hug. He just laughed and smacked my back until I let him go. 

 

"Rick... This is a big deal..." I said when I had calmed down some. We lit up one of the doobies he had always somehow managed to come up with, and I started to get a decent stone on. We had our heads stuck outside his bedroom window and were both very quickly starting to freeze. "If you volunteer, you'll be there three years. I'll only need to tour for two. That's too much, man, and you know it."

 

"I'm not letting you go by yourself." His tone was serious, more serious than I was used to from him. "I know you better than anyone else. You're not cut out for the military. I'm not either, but together, we might just make it."

 

"Then... I'm changing my enlistment status. If you're volunteering for three years for me, then I can do one more year for you." He grinned and shoved me against the window frame. I laughed and shoved him back. 

Like everything else we did, we would do this together.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armand and Riccardo go to basic training.

Chapter 2

Riccardo and I found ourselves at Camp Pendleton as a result of some prank played on us by the US military. We had gone to the induction center in New York with the intention of volunteering for the National Guard. After signing a few papers, they informed there was no representative from the guard that day.

We were told by some gunnery sergeant of the Marines that we could get a transfer right that minute for any other branch, but neither of us had the slightest idea what route to take. The guard would at least keep, for the most part, to the western hemisphere. 

He explained to the group of men that had come to the center that there needed to be an even coating of men sent to each of the branches, and that the guard had met their quota for the month, and that the Army and Marines were in need of red blooded American boys. 

The Marine told the draftees they could list all of the branches from most to least desirable, and they would be sorted as close to the top of their list as was possible. As the only volunteers in the bunch, we could be sorted with the rest. 

Rick and I both put the Marine Corp at the bottom. Who the hell wanted to join the Marines? They died faster over there than they could train and ship them out. Vietnam was the meat grinder, and Marines were the prime cuts. 

We were young, though, the youngest there. On top of that, we were intimidated. That gunnery sergeant had taken point, and we wanted to be as far from him as possible at the end of the line. He pronounced over the men their branches like an almighty command. 

He got to us and didn’t even read our lists. We would be Marines and neither of us had the balls to protest before the papers were shoved in our hands. Being volunteers, we could have gone anywhere we wanted, but we were too dumb to speak out. 

Dad was thrilled when I told him. 

Before we knew it, we were in barber's chairs getting buzzed. The curls I had grown all year, my fashionable coif, was on the floor, and I was left with a white scalp with coppery tinge. I was surprised how cold it was on my head and how strange it felt to feel air on my scalp. I missed my hair already. 

gimme a head with hair long beautiful hair

We were vaccinated, we signed our lives away, and we were out into the New York snow with in brand new, paper thin military fatigues. 

"Fuck. All of a sudden, the Marines and California are looking pretty good." We laughed at Ricky's joke and piled into a van with a few other inductees. We were packed onto a plane and shipped off to California. 

I'd never taken a trip in an airplane, and I couldn't even enjoy it because of the level of anxiety that had settled in my chest. I looked at Ricky, asleep against the window, and wished for all the world I hadn't let him talk his way into coming with me. I could have handled it by myself. It would have been hard, but I could have done it. I would have just taken my year, kept my head down and we would go back to the way things were, pass the time off as a bad memory. But no, he had to remind me that he'd be drafted the next year and would have to do the same thing then. Instead of spending two years apart, he said, we'd be spending two years together. 

I did my best not to think about it, to not think about Ricky's and my own safety and wellbeing being put into jeopardy for something we hardly understood.

The American Way was being threatened. What did that even mean? The enemy wasn't knocking on my door, threatening my family's lives. Vietnam was a world away. What’s more, we knew enough kids at school that grew up without fathers to truly understand that wars kill. 

The Red Plague was spreading. Spreading where? If the news was to be trusted, we were causing more harm to Vietnamese than Communists. We were the ones killing enemy and civilian without discrimination to maintain democracy in some far away country. The government wanted us there, the Vietnamese government wanted us there, and the Vietnamese people were doing their damnedest to get us out. The American people were doing their damnedest to get us out.

The last I had heard, Bianca had joined up with a group of feminists who had been protesting in the city. Her parents were mute on the matter, so I assumed it was all true. She said, when I reached out to her to say goodbye, that Rick and I would be back before we knew it, that we wouldn't even have time to miss her. She had a conspiratorial look in her eye, but she never eluded to having become a converted protester. 

Marius had, though. I went to see him the day before we were inducted. I had his home phone number but had never used it before. He invited me over, and we talked like we had never done in the classroom. I told him I had been drafted. He said he had heard through the grapevine. He had been dismissed after "the incident," and had kept himself busy painting in protest of the war. He had always been an activist, he told me, and there always was and always would be social injustices to fight.

I sat on his velvet sofa and told him about all the things I had felt but hadn't been able to tell anyone else. I told him I was afraid, afraid to go to Vietnam, afraid to be inducted, to be sent to camp, even afraid to leave my father's house. I told him how angry I was with my father; how bitter I was at being denied University. I was sick to death about the whole thing.

"I'm so angry, teacher, I could spit," I had told him as the tears pricked infuriatingly at my eyes. I couldn't look at him. My overflowing emotions threatened to burst through their levies and pour out of me until I was nothing but an empty sack of misery and hopelessness.

"None of this would have happened if he had just listened to me about us! I told him there was nothing going on, just art! I don't understand what he was so wigged about. So, I was nude. Big deal! We're both men. It's not like you've never seen things before. We didn’t do anything wrong." 

The entire time I spoke, he remained quiet, listened carefully, respectfully. He was so composed, so sympathetic in his silence, my heart felt like it would break in two from gratitude. No one who would have been sympathetic to me knew about any of this but him, and we hadn't spoken since The Incident.

I found I missed him terribly. I missed the intimacy of his silence nearly as much as I missed his voice, his touch, his discerning eye on me.

I fell silent partly because I had used up all my words, partly because I knew anymore display of emotion would end in tears, but also because I had had brought up something that had been troubling me a great deal. He had reawakened in me the same gnawing feeling in my guts that I used to feel when he would look at me. I wanted confirmation from him, some sort of validation one way or the other. Either I was correct in my words, or I was correct in my feelings, but I couldn't be both. There was either nothing to be guilty about, that we were innocent partakers in artistic expression or my father was right to deny me access to a man that made me feel the same stirrings in my stomach that Bianca caused when she invited me between her legs. 

"Armand... What happened between us, I think, is a little more complicated than you might realize. The artist's lot is to be misunderstood, but there are times when things are just as they seem. You’re old enough now. If you haven’t found it out for yourself yet, you soon will. There is more to life and love than what you have been brought up to understand. Do you understand me?”

I said yes. I did understand, and it complicated my life even more than it already was.

“As for your father… He is not your enemy. His scope may be limited, but his intentions are meant to protect you from the evils he perceives.”

“Evils? You mean yourself.”

“He certainly does not look on me with any goodwill.

“Yeah, but- “

“Yes.”

“Yes. But! He’s thrilled for me to be drafted! He hates you, who means me no harm and welcomes the war that might kill me! You’re not the evil one, teacher." 

“Perhaps not. That is not for me or you to decide. From your father's point of view, the military is what made him the man he is. He wants you to follow in his footsteps whether he is conscious of it or not. He believes the war will bring you out of boyhood and into manhood. 

I, in his mind, am the one who is inhibiting you from following the path he had laid for you. When he discovered what was between us, I believe it solidified in his mind how far you had strayed for the path. He wants what's best for you."

"But, sir, what he thinks is best is -" He put his hand up to still me, and I trailed off.

"I said he wants what is best. I did not say it was correct. His war, our war, is not Vietnam. When we fought, it for was a good and just cause. We fought a clear enemy; you are going to fight an ideal. Ideals are not so easy to defeat."

I looked down at my hands as the gravity of his words set in. The few tears that fell barely registered with me. "I don't want to go. I don't want to die."

He had stood, pulled me up gently, and wrapped his arms around me. They were strong, and warm, and everything I needed. It was the embrace of a father, a brother, a lover. I cried with such an abandon that is only ever really achieved by children.

By the time I had calmed down, he was still around me. I wiped my face with my shirt sleeve and looked up to see that even he had shed a couple tears for me.

"Armand... I can't keep you here. I can't go with you. I will still be here, though, and you will be in my thoughts." He leaned in and kissed the corner of my mouth. "I promise this. When you're feeling alone, afraid, remember that I'll be thinking of you."

"Some comfort." I couldn't help but say it. In all honesty, it was a great comfort to me, and he knew it. His face was suddenly a little less solemn.

"Well then. If you can give me sass, I would say you're feeling a bit better." He kissed my forehead. I kissed his lips. 

 

I could still feel Marius' lips on my face as I leaned my shoulder against Riccardo's. The memory of him so fresh in my brain did help my nerves if only slightly. I was able to look out the window and see more than just my imminent demise. 

The whole flight took more than twelve hours from start to finish, and it certainly was no PAN AM or anything that would link my first flight to the Golden Age of Travel. We were stuck on some military air bus, and it felt like it. It shook the entire time, and we all froze. All but Riccardo who enjoyed the excitement of the adventure for about an hour, then promptly fell asleep. One guy near the tail threw up constantly. 

We landed at the Orange County airport and were hustled out onto wobbling legs into yet another set of military vehicles. We were sick of traveling, and we still had hours left of our day.

Upon arrival at Camp Pendleton, it was dark, and even though it was warmer than plane and New York, the salty, damp air held a chill that bit right through our jackets and into our bones. It was quiet but for some distant sounds of night drills being run. 

We were ushered out of the Jeep by some red faced marine and told to line up shoulder to shoulder, front and center. Where that was, I let the guys ahead of us decide. There were probably thirty of us from New York, all volunteers or volun-tolds like Ricky and me. What surprised me was the fact that we were the youngest there. The rest of them must have been in their early and mid-twenties. I shuffled closer to Riccardo and clutched my bag of clothes to my chest. 

I was immediately surprised by the number of marines that were present just for us. One was at the center, four still gathered the guys from the other jeeps, and four more were stood by large rolling bins with stacks and stacks of bedding. Once we were all present and accounted for, we were ordered to LEFT FACE and we were suddenly a line in front of the bedding. We were each given a bedroll, a blanket and a pillow, and broken into twos. It was by design, I’m sure, that Rick and I were paired together. 

We walked two and two with four other guys and led us to the housing unit. Both sets of two were left at the first and second floors, and Riccardo and I were left on the third. We were handed off ceremoniously to a black man with a clipboard. Behind him, it seemed the rest of the bunk was taking it easy, laughing, throwing playful punches. They couldn't have been here long. Everyone had the same amount of hair on their heads. 

"I'm Jacobs. Michael Jacobs. Welcome to C-block.” His voice was deep and mellow. It was the kind of voice that vibrated deep in my chest, like the purr of a cat. I would have been happy to let him talk the rest of the night.

“Thanks, I’m Riccardo Besciglia.” They shook hands.

“Armand Prosvirnin.” I shook his hand.

“Good to meet you both. I'm squad leader for the time being. I was the first one here, and all. I got in early this morning. The rest of them are all in today from all over. Those guys," he pointed at the larger group of guys, "are from California, like me. They showed up about an hour after me. I'm from right here, though. Well, San Diego. The rest of them are from L.A., and up north in the Bay Area." Most of them seemed like Californians to a New Yorker like me. They were mixed races with dark and light skin, but they were all tall, shining smiles, with an innocent glimmer in their eyes, and a sinister glow that radiated off their skin from spending an unnatural amount of time in the sun. "Those guys," he gestured at a group for four white guys in the corner. "They're from... Iowa. They got in second." They seemed the shyest of the bunch with small smiles and halting laughs. 

"Them," He pointed at the last group of three, "they're from Louisiana." The first one, I could tell were going to be obnoxious, but the smile that stretched from ear to ear were infectious. He was too handsome by far, blue eyes, broad shoulders. He had a laugh I could hear half way across the room and was obviously way too used to being the center of attention. The one next to him, I don't know why, didn't feel right. There was nothing outwardly wrong with him, but it seemed his grin was more forced than that of the blonde. They knew each other, obviously, by the familiarity with which the blonde would touch other. The third one wasn't smiling at all. His hair was black, his eyes seemed to shine green as if they were was a light bulb screwed in behind them. 

His eyes caught mine, and I nearly choked. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. Where the other two seemed about my age, this one was just a little older. He held my gaze for the longest time before he turned his attention back to the blonde one. I looked around again and realized that there wasn't one man in that room that wasn't classically good looking. Every one of them, even the shy ones, was handsome. I hadn't expected that. I expected most of them to be average looking and one or two beautiful people. Maybe it was my newly found acceptance of newly discovered feelings that helped me see my new home in a way that would make me most comfortable. 

My eyes strayed back to the green-eyed man and found his attention was back on me.

“You two are the only ones I got from New York. This is your bunk, here.” He finally guided us out of the door and tapped an empty set of bunk beds right next to where the southerners chatted. I set my stuff down on the bottom bunk, and Riccardo took the top. We were told that the trunk at the foot of the bed would be mine, the one at the head would be Rick's. "We'll probably be getting ready for mess, here, in a minute. Now that we're full up, I don't know if the drill sergeant will be in tonight or tomorrow. Be ready either way."

As Jacobs walked away, the southerners walked up. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as the blonde stuck his hand out with a smile. 

"Welcome to hell! I'm Lestat, this is Nicolas, and that's Louis." I shook his hand and introduced myself. Riccardo followed after. His accent was different, and not one I expected. It was all over the world, it seemed, French and Southern, but most words had no inflection at all. "Jacobs said you were from New York."

"Yeah," I said a bit more confidently than I felt. "We're from a suburb of the City."

"Bitchin. The three of us are from New Orleans."

"Oh yeah? Did you know each other before enlisting?"

"Nicki and I did. We met Louis on the plane." 

Riccardo hooked his arm around my neck and said, "Us too. Known this guy all my life practically." I playfully punched him in the ribs, and found Louis grinned slightly. My cheeks warmed, and I shoved him off a little harder than I intended and commented on the way he smelled. Lestat and Nicki laughed openly. Riccardo came back swinging, and it would have turned into a brawl if the door to the bunk hadn't slammed open.

A tall man, grizzled and wrinkled, in full sergeant's regalia burst into the bunk blowing a whistle. Everyone knew instantly that this was the drill sergeant and froze. 

"Line up, children! I want you side by side in front of your bunks at attention!" Riccardo and I nearly tripped over ourselves to get in front of our bunk. "GOD DAMN! ANY SLOWER AND YOU CHILDREN WOULD BE GOING BACKWARDS! Listen up! I am your Drill Sergeant. My name is Sergeant Harold Magnus. You will not call me by my God given name because you have not EARNED IT! You, children, will call me Drill Sergeant! When I address you, you will respond, 'Yes, Drill Sergeant,' or 'no Drill Sergeant!' Is that CRYSTAL. FUCKING. CLEAR?"

"YES, DRILL SERGEANT!" Our combined voices shook as one so clearly, it felt like I had made it alone.

"WHAT? Oh no no no. THIS IS THE GOD DAMN MARINES, CHILDREN! WE DON'T USE INSIDE VOICES IN THE MARINES! I WANT THEM TO HEAR YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE OF CAMP! SHIT I WANT THE GOD DAMN AMERICAN FLAG ON MOON TO HEAR YOU! IS THAT CRYSTAL! FUCKING! CLEAR?"

"YES, DRILL SERGEANT!!" We all tried again. My hands shook at my sides. It was the same stance dad had made all of us kids take when one of us brought the flag down at night, but it felt wrong under his piercing gaze.

"Alright, then." Drill Sergeant snatched the clipboard from Jacobs and started to walk around the bunk. He didn't even look at it. He slowly walked around us without a word for at least five minutes. 

"JUMPIN JEHOSAFAT!" We all flinched. "YOU'RE THE PRETTIEST FUCKING BUNCH OF MEN I'VE EVER SEEN!" To my right, I could see Lestat twitch on the other side of Riccardo. Drill Sergeant saw and bee-lined it right to him. "YOU THINK THAT'S FUNNY? A BUNCH OF WANNABE MARINES LOOKING LIKE A BUNCH OF SISSIES?"

"NO, DRILL SERGEANT!"

"NO? ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME YOU DON'T THINK YOU'RE PRETTY?"

"NO, DRILL SERGEANT!" 

"NO? NO WHAT? DIDN'T YOUR MOMMA EVER TELL YOU HOW PRETTY YOU WERE?"

"YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"

"DO YOU THINK YOU'RE PRETTY?"

"YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"

"WELL I DON'T! I THINK YOU'RE UGLY! YOU'RE UGLY UNTIL YOU'RE SHINING WITH SWEAT, COVERED IN AMERICAN DIRT AND ENEMY BLOOD AND GUTS! GET ON THE GROUND AND GIVE ME FIFTY PUSH UPS! What's your name? THE FUCK KINDA NAME IS THIS!" He had finally looked at the clip board. Lestat dropped onto his hands and worked his muscled arms like no one I had ever seen. 

"It's French, Drill Sergeant!" His voice didn't quite have the same power behind it, but we all heard him loud and clear.

"FRENCH? THEY SENT ME A GOD DAMN FRENCHIE?" He moved suddenly from Lestat to Louis. "YOU A GOD DAMN FRENCHIE, TOO?"

"YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"

"GOD DAMMIT! AIN'T YOU PRETTY! DO YOU THINK YOU'RE PRETTY?"

"NO, DRILL SERGEANT!"

"AWW LITTLE BABY GONNA CRY ABOUT IT? SIT DOWN THERE AND CRY ABOUT IT, CRY BABY!" He sat right on the ground and brought his knees up to his chin. "YOU CALL THOSE PUSH UPS, PRINCESS? I HAVEN'T COUNTED ONE FUCKING AMERICAN PUSH UP! DO THEM OVER! I WANT TO HEAR YOU COUNT! IN FRENCH! DO IT! 

“Don't you LOOK AT ME WITH THEM CRAZY GIRLFRIEND EYES!” That must have been Nicolas. That was also, probably, what was so off putting about him. “What? Don't like me treating the princess like that? I SAID DON'T LOOK AT ME WITH THEM CRAZY GIRLFRIEND EYES! YOU LOOK AT YOUR DAMN SHOES, DE- HOLY SHIT! ANOTHER FRENCHIE?? WHAT’D I GET THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION?"

He turned around and Riccardo let a sound slip. "AND WHO ARE YOU?? YOU A FRENCHIE, TOO?"

"NO, DRILL SERGEANT!" I thought he was going to cry. I wanted to go home. I could see where this was going. It was the same way all my life.

"NO?? WHAT'S YOUR NAME THEN, LITTLE GIRL?"

"BESCIGLIA, DRILL SERGEANT!"

"A fucking WOP! NO WONDER YOU STINK LIKE GARLIC! AIN'T THERE ONE AMERICAN IN THIS ROOM? LISTEN UP CHILDREN, I'VE BEEN MAKING MEN OUT OF LITTLE GIRLS, SINCE THIS WOP WAS SUCKING CHIANTI OUTTA HIS MOMMA'S TITIES! I WANT YOU TO SWEAT THAT GARLIC OUT, WOP. JUMPING JACKS! DO IT NOW! YOU DON'T STOP TILL I SAY SO!" He turned his attention finally to me. His mouth was huge. I hadn’t noticed it before, but with him less than a foot from my face, it looked like it would unhinge like a snake’s and swallow me whole.

"What about you? Where do you come from?"

"NEW YORK, DRILL SERGEANT!"

"NEW YORK! I DON'T BELIEVE IT. WHERE'S YOUR DADDY FROM?" 

"NEW YORK, DRILL SERGEANT!"

"THIS DON'T LOOK LIKE A DAMN NEW YORK NAME, LITTLE GIRL! WHERE'S YOUR GRANDDADDY FROM?" There it was. Dad had warned me they would make a big deal about having a Slavic name. I was just supposed to take what was coming and thank him. That was it. There's no lip service in the Marines.

"THE UKRAIN, DRILL SERGEANT!"

"UKRAIN? YOU MEAN THE USSRA! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, THEY SENT ME A COMMIE! I WANT YOU DOING SIT UPS RIGHT NOW!"

"THANK YOU, DRILL SERGEANT!"

"JESUS CHRIST AREN'T YOU POLITE! YOU MUST MAKE YOUR DADDY SO PROUD!"

"Yes… Drill Sergeant!" By then, I was already on the ground and on my first sit up.

"YOU MUST BE DADDY'S FUCKING LITTLE ANGEL! I DON'T BELIEVE IN COMMUNISM. DO YOU?"

"NO... DRILL SEARGENT!"

"I BELIEVE COMMUNISM IS THE DEVIL'S WORK! DO YOU REJECT COMMUNISM?"

"I DO... DRILL SERGEANT!" 

"AND ALL IT'S WORKS?"

"I do... Drill Sergeant!”

"AND ALL ITS EMPTY PROMISES?"

"I... DO... DRILL SERGEANT!"

"YOU'RE NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH IF YOU CAN STILL ANSWER ME! WHAT WILL DADDY THINK OF HIS LITTLE ANGEL?"

And just like that, he moved on to Jacobs. He had demeaned all of us in turn, used every derogatory name in the book until we were all embarrassed, sore, and ready to cry. Like Drill Sergeant instructed, Riccardo didn't stop jumping. Lestat must have done three hundred push-ups. Once he finished his set, Drill Sergeant reeled back around and make him do them over again. I couldn't see Louis, but if I looked, I knew Drill Sergeant would see and come to berate me again. 

He commanded us to get our sorry asses off the ground and to get in line. We obeyed and stood single file. He started to dictate our foot falls in a strict rhythm that would last us our entire stay at Pendleton. He started to sing a cadence that we had yet to learn and marched us down the stairs, and into the dining room. 

There were already guys there with their meals, but only a few of them seemed to think that what we were doing was funny. We were marched up to the end of the food line and stomped our feet until the drill sergeant told us to halt. Someone behind me added an extra step and was exiled to the back of the line. 

Jacobs was first in line, and he was given a number of soupy goops and what I only assumed was meatloaf. It was only slightly more recognizable on my own tray. One of the goops was spinach, another was peas, the last was mashed potatoes. 

I must have made a face because as the lot of us sat at an empty table, Riccardo said, "Better just eat it, man. We're going to need the energy if just now was any indication." 

"That's for damn sure." It was one of the Californians. "Pass the salt, angel?" The table went quiet. 

"You don't mean me?" I stared at him, and he grinned. 

"Yeah, man. I don't actually know your name, you know?"

"Oh. Right." I passed the salt and pepper that were on the table. "I'm Armand."

"Douglas. Thanks, Ang." The rest of them laughed, but Lestat was the loudest. 

"What are you laughin' at, Princess?" 

"I'm laughing at you, Angel!" I couldn't help but laugh along. 

Louis rolled his eyes and for a moment, I felt a little ashamed. "Don't you think that's a bit ridiculous?" It was the second time I heard him speak, but it surprised me. Where Lestat and Nicolas had fairly heavy accents, Louis had the slight roundness of the vowels and clipped consonants that betrayed his New Orleans heritage only to someone who expected to hear it. 

"Yeah, I do, but I'd rather laugh about it that cry about it." The entire table erupted into raucous laughter. That was enough to break the ice. 

As I listened, nearly everyone had some kind of insult hurled at them by the drill sergeant that stuck immediately. Louis was Cry Baby, Lestat was Princess, Nicki had Crazy Eyes, I was Angel, Nicki was deemed WOP, but he was three seconds away from starting a fight about it. I'm just glad I didn't end up with Ruski. Jacobs was Momma's Boy, but we all ended up calling him Momma. We also had Chickadee, Peewee, Stink Tongue, Monkey Man, Cocoa, Tiddies, who was actually a very well-built Californian, Binkies, Bunny, Jack Ass, and Powwow. Some of the names stuck, others ended in small private fights after the first week. 

Riccardo's was the first fight. Jack Ass, adhering to his new name, had gotten personal when we threw around our evening banter. He had started out commenting on the food, but it moved to Rick as soon as he started talking about his mother's cooking. Words were hurled back and forth, but things like "Without Pasta" and "Women on Prick" got him rubbing his whole hand over his chin. I had seen Riccardo beat on his brothers, but I had only seen him get this mad once when we were at school. Some loud mouth was making a joke about his family, and we were both suspended for fighting. 

Jack Ass started to run his mouth about his mother, and suddenly he wasn't the only one angry. I was as protective of Riccardo's family as he was. I was more ready to fight for his family than my own. My fists started to open and close, and I itched to throw the first punch. Momma tried to get us to quit with a "knock it off, man." Lestat even joined in with a "shut up, Jack Ass!"

"I'm just saying! I seen I-ty women. Huge tits, fat asses. Am I right? Bet your mommy could do with a little more 'without pasta,' huh WOP? Hey, what happened when she had you, huh? Just sneezed and pop! there goes little noodle WOP across the room!" The boarders around my vision had begun to close when his lips started flapping, but by the end, it was like I stared at him through the wrong end of the binoculars. 

It only took Riccardo an instant to stand and pull Jack Ass across the table and onto the floor. I had my tray in my hands, the remainder of my salad flew over my shoulder, and brought it down over his head more than once before I flung the metal tray across the table. Riccardo's fist was a blur as it came down again and again on his fat face. I vaulted over the bench and had every intention of landing one of a few kicks to his knees and stomach, but an arm grabbed me around the waist and threw me down to the floor. Louis was immediately recognizable as he ran to pull Rick off Jack Ass. He was shoved back with a force I didn't know Riccardo had, but Momma got him under his arms and dragged him back kicking and snarling. 

I saw an opening and took to my feet. Louis grabbed me by my shirt collar before he gripped me around the chest and begged me to leave him be. Lestat had Jack Ass on his feet and shook him furiously by the shirt. I thought he would hit him, and I must have egged him on, because Louis told me to shut up. He shoved me roughly back onto the bench and Momma stuck his finger in my face. I wanted to smack it out of the way, but the look in his eyes, so like my father's the night of The Incident, held me like a pup by the scruff. 

"You watch him." I turned to see Riccardo next to me. He shook from head to toe. Momma strode over to where Lestat had his arm around Jack Ass' neck and wrapped his own around his waist. Together, they wheeled him back to the bench and forced him to sit. Riccardo made a lunge, but I grabbed him and sat him back down.

"Relax! Relax. It's over."

Just as he took a steady breath, the door to the canteen burst open and in came Drill Sergeant.

"ATEN-TION!" By reflex, we stood as a unit and saluted him. "WHAT THE CHRIST IS HAPPENING HERE, CHILDREN? WHO'S GONNA TELL ME?" We were all silent. "Nobody, huh? No one's going to tell me about Jack Ass's stupid face?" 

"SIR! PRIVATE WILSON FELL, SIR!"

"FELL? JUMPING JACKASS, JACK ASS! YOU MEAN TO TELL ME YOU FELL? I'M TALKING TO YOU, PRIVATE JACK ASS!"

"Yes, Drill Sergeant!"

"WHAT WAS THAT, JACK ASS?"

"YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"

"SO SAY YOU ALL?"

"YES, DRILL SERGEANT!" 

"Fine. Jack Ass, get yourself to the infirmary and make sure you didn't damage my property any further." 

"YES, DRILL SERGEANT!" His nose was sickeningly crooked and had started bleeding all down his face. When he spoke, he did his best to spit it out. He didn't dare break his form to mop it up. 

"And, dammit, SOMEONE GET HIM A NAPKIN! Since you ladies are done eating, wrap it up and get to bed." At least we weren't little girls anymore. 

"YES, DRILL SERGEANT!" 

"Hope you children get a good night sleep. I’m sensing a tour of the grounds is in your future. DISMISSED!”

We cleaned up mess in record time and all but ran up the three flights of stairs to our bunk. I felt a little giddy, and Riccardo couldn't sit still. He packed and repacked his trunk, then sat there and shined his boots. The whole room buzzed with what had just happened, and Momma was fuming. Within twenty minutes, Jack Ass came back with a few pretty bruises on his face and swollen but straight nose. 

Like a two dogs, Riccardo and Jack Ass locked eyes. Momma was quick to step in. "That's it! I've had it with you today." He grabbed Jack Ass by his bloody shirt and sat him down on a bunk. He got Riccardo to sit opposite. "Jack Ass, that was a shitty thing you said. When someone tells you to knock it off, do it, man! Rick, you didn't have to drag him over the damn table and beat the shit out of him. Now, Sergeant Magnus is gonna run us into the ground. From now on, WOP is banned. No one says it, no one thinks it. The end. Shake hands, you two. This is over."

Riccardo was quick to anger, but he was always quick to let it go. He shrugged and the two of them shook hands. 

"Sorry about the insults, man. Didn't think you were that pissed about it."

"Yeah. Sorry about your face." 

"Yeah, you broke it a little." 

The air in the room was suddenly much lighter. As the lot of us started to settle down for bed, I approached Louis and apologized for my behavior.

"Don't worry about that." He voice was as smooth, placid, and pleasing as it ever was, and it made me smile. "I thought you really might kill him. You had this look in your eyes I don't think I had ever seen before. It was only for a second."

"I saw the whole thing," Lestat interrupted and flopped onto Louis' bunk right next to him. He was so free with his words and his actions. He had a skill for doing the exact thing that would annoy me the most, then turn around and do or say something wonderful. He was hot and cold. When I didn't love him, I hated him, and when I didn't hate him, I loved him. At that moment, when he all but crawled into Louis' lap, I hated him. "I didn't think either of you was capable of getting that red. I thought Rick's head was gonna splat all over us. You just about matched your hair. It was a good thing I jumped in when I did. Jack Ass was getting ready to return fire."

"Yes, Princess, you're a damn saint. Thank you from the bottom of my heart." I dropped onto my bunk, which, coincidentally, was next to Louis' and started to pull my socks off.

"Can it, Angel. If it wasn't for me, Louis and Momma, you and your girlfriend would be flat on your asses with a disciplinary." He tossed his balled socks at me, that devil's grin plastered on his face. Even as I prayed for God to give me patience, I took up his socks and threw them back more forcefully then both of my own. 

"Will both of you quit it? I do not want to be caught in the middle of another fight." I was tempted to retort, but the tired look in his eyes cut the words off before they escaped. Lestat, didn't listen as well as I did and lobbed the entire sock pile back at me. It exploded in my face and my nose and eyes were assaulted with the manly sweat stink of post workout socks. 

"Jesus!"

"I said stop! Why do you keep doing this? I say one thing, and you do the opposite. I asked you to stop, and you keep going! I have had enough of you! I'm going to sleep. Get off my bunk."

"Aw, Louis! I wanted to cuddle tonight!"

"Not on your life. Get. Off!" Louis kicked him in the ribs a few times until Lestat finally stood in a huff. 

"God! Fine. You don't need to get nasty. And you know what, I'm sick of you, too. You're humorless, all you do is mope around. Depressing!"

"Oh, get a room already!" I don't know who said it, but it was answered by several laughs and a few catty remarks. 

The spent the next few days apart, both of then rotating from man to man, until Riccardo had his accident.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tragedy strike

Chapter 3

 

For three weeks, the lot of us ran the globe, pushed the earth away from ourselves, pulled the sky closer, sweated the Nile a piece, and learned to vomit in any position. By the end of the third week, we had all lost ten pounds of fat and gained it all back in muscle. We ran obstacles and ate mud pies. Our boots were new when we started, but after miles of track, dirt, and the number of hurdles we climbed, they were all worn out in the soles. The bigger guys had already had theirs replaced, Lestat included. The smaller of us, including myself and Riccardo, still had enough tread to be denied replacements, but too little to have much traction. 

Wipe outs were common in the obstacle courses that were laid out. We were all fast and strong, but the drill sergeant demanded more and more every day. We had to be faster, more precise. Our lines must be straighter, our cadences louder. Our M-16's, which we had been given at the end of week two, needed to be cleaned faster, our reloads were to become flawlessly executed, our aim sharper. We wore our weapons everywhere, during every activity, even mess and when we slept. Abuse was barked at us whenever we were clumsy or negligent with our weapons. When one of us would wipe out, and our weapon so much as touched a blade of grass, we all did pushups while he lectured us. 

It was very early in the spring, and on the West Coast, the meant cold mornings, damp air, and wet grass. Every man was soaked from the knee down with California dew. The miles we run with as much care as could be mustered, but all of us with original boots slipped and slid across the field with all the grace of ballerinas; a fact of which the drill sergeant kept us very aware. 

One of those wet mornings, my eyes were open just moments before reveille was bugled into the dawn. We had settled into the routine, and the sergeant had achieved his goal of making us broken and obedient. We all sat up together in trained unity and climbed out of bed, filed in for breakfast, and filed out for roll call. As was routine, we huddled into formation and ran for the first hour, our cadence sung loud and even. I still wasn't quite used to the fact that I could jog step for step with a herd of men with barely a drop of sweat on my brow.

As was usual, our boots were soaked by the time we were filed into two lines side by side. Lestat was beside me, Riccardo behind me. We filed in for the morning's hurdles without a thought, without hesitation. Our stumbles were expected, and the sergeant's shouts were mostly ignored. I wish I could say were getting hard, but really, I believe we were just growing complacent. 

Lestat and I were in the middle of the herd when we hit the log wall. The obstacle was to get up and over the hurdle by clinging to one log, pulling the torso up while the legs pushed off the previous log. Once on top, the return down on the other side was much the same. The guys that scrambled over in front of us looked like monkeys scaling jungle branches towards the canopy. The obstacle fit four men abreast, two going up, and two going down. God only knows how long those logs had been in place. They were well worn, smooth with rubber from boots, sweat and oils from hands and heads.

As Lestat and I cleared the chain link fence hurdles and ran, full tilt, through the wet grass towards the logs, Riccardo and Nicolas were at our heels. 

It really was an accident, and I didn't see it happen, but I felt and heard it. Our boots were wet, and the logs were wet from the boots of the men in front of us. I knew they were, and I moved as carefully as I could. I heard the sergeant back a ways screaming at someone about the misuse of his weapon and was not at the logs to regulate the intervals of climbers. Lestat, with his new boots was ahead of me, but I could feel my traction give every now and then. 

"Come on man. Move your ass!" Riccardo dogged my heels. I knew I needed to move. The sergeant would be back, and I would be the one that held up the line. I put on some speed and was one log from the top when my boot gave up the ghost. I slipped. My hands on the top log kept me from falling, but my boot heel collided with Riccardo's face then landed on one of his fingers. There was a grunt from Rick, several gasps then sickening crunch and thump. 

My arms were around the log at my chest. I felt my guts churn moments before I could will myself to look down. At first, he seemed fine, like he would sit up and yell at me for being a clumsy fool. He would get up and finish the obstacle. He would shove me into the mud, and all would be forgiven. But, he didn't move. His eyes were open, and they rolled in his head. The other guys were off the obstacle and so was I. I can't remember how I got down. The drill sergeant was there in a minute, but I couldn't hear him over my barrage of apologies and excuses to Riccardo. 

It was described to me after the fact that my boot hit Riccardo on the cheek. His boot slipped forward, my boot caught his hand, and he fell backwards, and landed head and neck first. 

My hands were on his shirt, and a single panicked tear fell down one side of my face. I begged him not die, not to leave me alone. I thought, as I was pulled off him and the sergeant ordered a team of medics, he had broken his neck and would surely die. He whimpered like a pup, tears were in his eyes and mine as his neck was wrapped and he was placed on an ancient looking stretcher. 

Louis and Lestat had come to me, and I gripped Louis' shirt with two fists the way a child clung to his mother. Lestat had his one arm around my chest, and one around my head. He had me pinned against his muscled chest and Louis drawled comforts into my ear. I wanted to run after the cart that came and took Riccardo away. I wanted to wake up from that nightmare, step on my bunk and watch his grumpy face growl his annoyance at me. 

I wanted to go home. I wanted my mother. Not only was I broken physically by the amount of training we had, but I was broken down in my soul. On top of it all, I was responsible for the death of my best friend. 

The cart turned a corner, and the Drill Sergeant was in my face. He demanded that I relate what happened to his property. 

"My boot slipped, Drill Sergeant. I... I killed Riccardo." Realization smacked me in the face, and I shoved Louis and elbowed Lestat until they were both away from me. I dropped myself right onto the ground and ripped the laces of my boots out of their fastenings and pulled them off. All the while, the drill sergeant screamed profanities in my face and ordered me on my feet. "Look! Look at my boots! They don't have any sole at all! Look!" 

I recounted every second of it from start to finish three times, once to the sergeant, once to the captain, and again to the sergeant major of the camp. I didn't cry from the moment Riccardo was out of sight to when they sat me down in the drill sergeant's office and shoved a phone in my hand to call my folks. It was noon in California and four o'clock in New York. 

"Hello." My mother answered the phone, and my little siblings laughed and played in the background. It all sounded so normal, so familiar, that I broke down and cried right on the phone. 

"Momma," I sniffled into the receiver.

"Armand? Armand, lover. Oh, honey, I just got off the phone with Mrs. Besciglia. Honey, I'm so sorry."

"Momma, I... I killed him. I killed Riccardo. I can't stand it here. I hate it. I want to come home."

"Sweetheart - "

"Mom, I can't do it! I can't do this without him! I don't care about the war! I don't care about the Army, or the Marines, or Vietnam. I want to come home." I gulped the air and started to see spots and airbursts.

"Armand. Get a hold of yourself." She was usually the one I could talk to, the soft shoulder I could lay my head on. I could tell her what I needed and if it was genuine, she would find a way to make it happen. I had never heard her take the tone she took with me then. She sounded like dad. "Armand, you have to stop crying. You're in the Marines now, and that's the end of it. I'm sorry about Riccardo, too, but you have to keep yourself together."

"But mom! I want to come home! I need to come home!"

"Son... You can't. If you leave now, you won't have a home to come to."

"What?"

"Daddy and I love you, but you don't have a home here anymore. The boys you're with are your new family. You can come home when your time is done, alright? You're a man. A Marine. You can't cry anymore. Daddy and I will keep writing. We love you. Just...stick with it. Alright?"

Ain’t got no home ain’t got no shoes ain’t got no money ain’t got no class

I was dumbfounded. This wasn't what I had expected from my mother and it dried up my tears in an instant. "Yeah. Alright."

"I have to go. I love you."

"Love you, too." The phone clicked in my ear as she put the phone back down on the receiver. I stared at the phone and felt the tears creep back up into my eyes. This time, I willed them down when numb shock was overtaken by a slow burning anger that started at the top of my head and dripped down my face, down my back and permeated my very soul. I had no home but the Marines? The people who wanted me dead? The organization that refused my request for new boots? 

Behind me, the door opened, and the chaplain stepped in. I turned and looked at him, with fire in my eyes, but he was unfazed. He laid his hand on my head and blessed me in the catholic fashion. 

"My son, may I sit with you and pray for our brother, Riccardo?" The rage started to melt in the way it came on. I nodded and set the phone back on the cradle. He sat in the chair next to me, his hand still on my head, and began to pray. "Our Father who leads us and guides us with His all-knowing hand, we pray for the safe deliverance of our brother Riccardo Besciglia from his injuries. Please give your son, Armand, peace through his nights, and strength through his days. We ask this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen."

The prayer gave me a strange warmth in my stomach and my heart that felt like the hand of God. I had forgotten about Him since I stopped going to church because I wanted to and started going because it was expected of me. I crossed myself and looked at the priest with new eyes. If there was any hope, I thought, it would be in God. The priest looked back at me and smiled. 

"He's still alive, Armand, but his back is broken at the shoulder blades. He's in God's hands, now. He will decide in His infinite wisdom over the next several days whether He will deliver Riccardo back to us or call him to His side. We have to be strong for him."

"Yes, father." 

"If you like, you can stop into the chapel whenever you have free time. I'll keep a candle burning for him.”  
When he finally stood and walked out the door, I was left in a soothed but numb state. I was stuck in limbo between too much feeling and none at all. It was very like the months that led up to the phone call had started the constant leak of negativity in my heart and dripped constantly until it finally left me empty. The little factory in my chest that produced emotion performed a full shutdown and left my heart to sit alone with all the lights off. 

I never really cried after that, and I found that I got better at feigning my reactions to things. I laughed when it was appropriate, I read the letters from home with the detachment of a stranger hearing about another stranger. Riccardo, it turned out, had major widespread nerve damage. He survived the fall, but he would never be the same. From the shoulders down, he had the motor skills of an infant. Mrs. Besciglia wrote to update me on his progression. 

Riccardo would begin physical therapy as soon as his bones and nerves healed as much as they would. He was medically discharged from the Marines and was brought back to New York to receive his treatments at home. I wish I was glad about it. I wanted to be glad he was alive, that I hadn't caused his death, but I felt very little. The letters were little more than sheets of facts and prospects. I knew I should have been afraid at the idea of seeing myself through two years of service without him there, but all I was aware of was a vague satisfaction that he would live, despite his paralysis, the rest of his life without having to have gone to Vietnam. 

I found that I had grown closer to Louis during the final weeks of basic training after Riccardo's accident. He told me how his brother had taken a tumble down the stairs and wasn't as lucky as Riccardo was. Though we shared a very similar tragedies, he still had a measure of feeling I wish I had. Through no conscious effort of my own, began to emulate Louis. What he did, I did, how he reacted to things was how would react. Little by little, he showed me what it was like to feel again. 

This, however, was nothing like the old way I would feel things. I took to my M-16 as if I was new mother. I nursed it, cradled it, cleaned it intimately. I became one of the best shots in the outfit, and the Drill Sergeant harped on me less and less. I was cold, collected, and stupidly unafraid of the future. 

There was very little point to worrying about the future. After a few more weeks of more specialized training, we would be sent to the meat grinder, and we would all be killed. Lestat, Louis, Nicolas, especially Nicolas, everyone was suddenly no closer than an arm's distance away from me. I had no capability of tenderness for any of them. I ached all over, deeper than my muscles, into my very soul.   
By the end of basic, we were machines. We were programmed robots of murder, and we were handed off with great pomp and circumstance to a captain Santino Porcelli. We had our individual photos taken and stood in formation as the Drill Sergeant handed us over to the olive skinned captain. We saluted the sergeant as he walked away. 

It was the last we saw of him.


End file.
